Home if the Vessel (Part 1/Truest Words)
by Helene2
Summary: B/A (An alternate ending to "The Gift) Glory's gateway must be closed, but Buffy won't let her sister die. However, Buffy has her own gaurdian. (Warning: Character Death)


TITLE: Home is the Vessel (Part 1 of the "Truest Words" series)  
AUTHOR: Helene  
SPOILERS: Up to and including "The Gift"  
RATING: PG-13  
FEEDBACK: Purty please??? Please? Please?  
  
  
***  
  
"Buffy no!" Dawn pleaded, clutching her sister, watching her through a hazy shimmer of pained tears. "No!" she shrieked, in the utter agony, and hopelessness of the situation before her.  
  
"Dawnie I have to do this..." Buffy whispered, never releasing her sobbing sister.  
  
"No no no..." Dawn kept crying, as if that repeated mantra would will away the world, the swirling vortex, her sisters demise. Buffy suddenly longed for the days when she thought problems could be fixed like that, by squeezing your eyes shut, and violently whispering. How she craved that innocence. And now, like her own, Dawn's was about to be shattered. All to save the damn world, the world that didn't even know it needed saving, or at what cost.   
  
"I love you Dawnie," she whispered into her hair, clutching her close. Already the heat from the Vortex was blistering her back, reminding her of it's oppressive prescence. She couldn't even say her good-byes without evil lurking. And then she said them, her goodbyes. To Giles, Willow, Xander, Anya, Spike, and finally Dawnie. She told her little sister all the words she had never said, assuming time was hers, and not that it had been plotting to rid itself of her, far too soon, to early. Dawn cried through it all, but she understood, would remember, would tell.   
  
There was one more good-bye, but that good-bye she couldn't share with Dawn. No, she had learned to lock those words away in her heart, and so her heart would make those goodbyes, not the sweet child's voice of Dawn. Turning to face her destiny, what years of slaying and training had reared her for, she faced the ugly fate of all the girls before her, and all the girl's that would reign after her. She faced Death. With those final good-byes to her friends echoing in her mind, her final good-bye to Angel a whisper in her heart, she prepared to run.   
  
She could feel Dawn's fingers clutching at her, silently screaming for her to turn back, stay with her, with the living. But Buffy knew, in a moment of frightening clarity, turning back was not an option. She broke into a flat run. Each pounding of her foot against the steel, matched the painful bang of her heart, each of the final breaths she sucked into her burning lungs, where like fire in their intensity. She was suddenly so aware of everything, all the things that would stop as soon as she jumped. Air, heartbeats...feeling.   
  
The Vortex drew nearer, crackling and sizzling with the fury of hell, and pain, and demon's strength. She could feel it, already sucking her in, beckoning her too it, knowing it's sustanence, what it craved, was about to be claimed. But all of a sudden, she wasn't moving forward, no she was spiraling downward towards the hard metal mesh, banging against it with a resonating thud. She groaned, realizing she had been tackled. 'No, Dawn no!' her mind screamed, but she looked up, and Dawn's eyes didn't meet her back. Angel's did.  
  
Her breath hitched in her throat, and time, already seeming slow and suspended, stopped all together. Angel looked down at her, pinning her to the metal, saving her from a death that Fate demanded. No, he couldn't do this. He couldn't save her this time. No one could. She struggled to shake him off, but Angel held her in a iron grip, a fierce hold that she had never known in his gentle embrace. But this was no embrace. His eyes boded of an ominous finality. And she saw his next move. Self-sacrifice.   
  
She began to shake her head, but found herself unable to, as Angel took her head in his hands, forced her head back, exposed the flesh of her neck, the scar that should have faded long ago, but never had, and never would. She felt the pain of the bite as it tore into her flesh, heard the gurgle as Angel drank the red substance from her, sucked it from her veins. And in that moment, that moment so close to the oneness that had been forbidden them, everything flashed before her eyes. Was it the recording of her life, that people said flashed before you eyes as death neared. Was this how she would die. Not at the hand's of demon's but those of her forbidden love?  
  
//I'm a friend.  
Yeah? Well maybe I don't want a friend!//  
  
//Angel, do you snore?  
I don't know. It's been a long time since anybody's been in a position to let me know.//  
  
//Do you love me?  
What?  
Do you love me?  
I love you.//  
  
//Love makes you do the wacky.//  
  
//Angel, when I look into the future, all I see is you! All I want is you.  
I know the feeling.//  
  
//I-I love you. I try not to but I can't stop.  
M-me too! I can't either.//  
  
//Hey, I love you, even if your covered in slime.//  
  
//Nothing can change that. Not even death.//  
  
Death? Buffy groaned as she was brought back to reality, felt the dull ache of Angel's fangs in her flesh. Why was he doing this? Why was he here? Was it Angelus? Just as soon as his fangs had been in her skin, they were gone. His weight pinning her motionless vanished into the night air, still burning, even more as Glory grew in intensity. What was happening? She felt a pair of small warm hands against her, Dawn's hands, helping her to her feet. She was so dizzy. What was happening? A moment and the disorientation was gone, harsh reality came crashing back to her. And she saw a sight that made her blood run cold, and her heart stop altogether. Angel leaping from the platform.  
  
"ANGEL!" she screamed. And he was gone.   
  
  
  
***  
  
  
Angel felt the pain beating his flesh the instant he jumped. The vortex seemed to seize him the moment he lept into the air, sucked at him with an unimagineable force. He felt as if his very essence was being torn from him, skin no more than tissue paper, muscle nothing more than soft cotton, bones mere twigs in the face of this awesome power. But of course the beast he had fed himself to wouldn't care about any of those things. All it wanted was one thing. The blood that now coursed through his veins, alive in it's freshness, still beating as her blood, not his. Still beating as Summers' blood.  
  
//"Vision!" Cordelia screamed, falling to the floor. Angel had run to her side, as he always did, holding her shaking body, as the pain lanced through her. She had looked up at him bleary eyed once it finally stopped, and her face fell into a look of utter fear.   
  
"Cordy?" Angel asked, but somehow he knew. She had never looked at him that way after a vision. She seemed terrified to tell him this one, like it was personal to him, not one of the many people he saved, but someone truly close to home, to his heart.   
  
"God, no. Buffy?" he cried, and she nodded.   
  
"What happened?"  
  
"She going to die Angel. Sacrifice herself to save her sister. Her blood! Oh God Angel, she's gonna die!" Cordy cried, rising from the floor.  
  
"What about her blood? Cordy, what's happening?" Angel questioned, already on the verge of blind panic. Only 2 and a half centuries of common sense kept him from running out the door, made him realize he needed the facts before he moved on.  
  
"A demon... a-a door? To somewhere? It needs to be closed, and only....only her blood can do it...Angel, she's gonna die!"  
  
And in that moment, everything came together. Everything the Oracles told him, everything he had done. Losing his humanity, would ensure her life. Now he knew why. As a Vampire, he could take her blood, go in her place, close whatever had opened, with the Summers' blood coursing through his veins. //Together you are strong.// Together, his body as the vessel, her blood as the key, combined, they formed the force that would close the door.   
  
He had to go, he coulnd't let her die. He couldn't let fate snuff out the amazing creation they had made of her. He couldn't let the short life she had end. His time had come.  
  
"Cordy, I'm going to Sunnydale!" he told her, and was gone, before the former May-Queen could do anything. //  
  
And now here he was, suspended in air, in a demonic force that wrenched his very life from him. Her blood. His blood. All one now. Fused together in this mistical convergence. And suddenly the pain was gone, because his mind had given him the most comforting thought possible. Buffy would live. She would live. Yes, it was all painless know. His beloved's fire would burn forever now. She wasn't dying. Yes, the pain was gone. 'I love you....' his mind whispered, and then he was gone.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
Buffy could barely make it down the stairs. Her legs wouldn't work. She was shaking so hard, that the entire contraption rattled under her. She could already feel the sickness in her stomach, the awful realization that he....oh no...The nasaue struck with ferocity, and she heaved against the cold cement, until she coughed blood, her stomach too empty to give anything else. Angel...no, not Angel.   
  
Forcing her legs to work, her knees to bend and move, she stumbled over to where his broken form lay in the rubbish collected in this place. No, this wasn't a fitting death for him. Not amongst trash, and dirty rock. No, not fitting for Angel. Not her Angel.   
  
Everyone was stuck in stunned silence, not able to believe the sight before them. Angel, broken and lifeless. What had happened? No one's mind seemed able to register what was occuring. Buffy stumbled over to him, and sunk to her knees, trembling hands slowly reaching out to him. Then she felt his cold flesh, dead flesh, and something in her broke. This was Angel, lying dead before her.  
  
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" she screamed, clutching his body to her. "NO!" she sobbed. It was a gut-wrenching, guttaral, animal cry. "Angel, no...." she pleaded, burying her face in his shoulder. "Please...God....Angel, no!" she whispered, rocking back and forth, holding his lifeless body all the more tighter. "Noo...please!" she sobbed.   
  
The friends that surrounded her, slowly walking closer to her, felt their own hearts breaking, at the pure despair, pure sadness racking the Slayer's small body. Willow sunk to her friends level,and wrapped her arms around her. "Buffy...oh Buffy..." she whispered. Buffy's tear stained face turned to face her, pure agony etched into features all to young to bear that kind of pain.   
  
"B-but..." she sputtered, "but he can't be dead! He's not ashes! See? He's not dead!" she cried in vain, desperately trying to enshroud herself in denial, denial that she was holding his dead body in her hands. The look on the witche's face though, wouldn't lie. It bore the pain of truth. Willow looked sadly at her friend, seeing the heartbreak she had only seen once before on her best friends face, when Angel left the first time. "Oh God Willow! He can't be! Not Angel! He can't! Willow!" she screamed, and the red-head clutched the Slayer in her arms.   
  
"No..."  
  
Buffy's pleading whisper chilled the night air.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
Buffy stood silently before Angel's grave. His casket had been lowered there, hours ago. Buried in the soft earth, since it had still been light out, and still she didn't move. Like her mother's grave, she remained there in a stunned silence. He hadn't been reduced to ashes. No, his life force had been drained away, and a corpse had remained. A corpse with hollow eyes that had stared up at her. She slowly placed the single white rose against the tombstone, enscribed Liam O'Malley. Angel to those who loved him.   
  
"This is the hardest goodbye I've ever said to you," she whispered, and felt the tears spring to her eyes. The blinding pain, the sadness. "Why? Why do these things happen?" she questioned, and sighed when she realized, the one person who gave her answers to these questions, was no longer there. He was buried six feet under. She sobbed harshly. Why Angel? Why did fate take Angel? After all he did for them? Why him?  
  
"Time to go home Buffy," Spike said gently, taking her arm and guiding her from the grave. Despite their hatred of one another, Angel was Spike's GrandSire, his bloodline, part of his creation. Angel had hated Darla, yet it still pained him to kill her. Spike was experiencing this now.   
  
"I can't go home..." Buffy whispered, her eyes vacant and lost. "Home is gone...home was in his arms," she cried sadly. "It's gone."   
  
  
  
FIN 


End file.
